The International Cricket Council (ICC) has introduced a penalty system for overs bowled late. The bowling team will be given 60 seconds between overs and the batting side will have an addition of five runs to the total if such a delay happens thrice in an innings.
The decision, taken at the ICC Board meeting in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, will come into effect on an experimental basis from December to April next year.
The clock will be used to regulate the amount of time taken between overs. If the bowling team is not ready to bowl the next over within 60 seconds of the previous over being completed, a five-run penalty will be imposed the third time it happens in an innings.
The ICC also said the board has agreed to changes to the pitch and outfield monitoring regulations, including a simplification of the criteria against which a pitch is assessed and increasing the threshold for when a venue could have its international status removed from five demerit points to six demerit points over a five-year period.
Gender eligibility criteria
The Board also approved new gender eligibility regulations for the international game following a 9-month consultation process with the sport’s stakeholders. “The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion, and this means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken,” the ICC said.
The review, which was led by the ICC Medical Advisory Committee chaired by Dr Peter Harcourt, relates solely to gender eligibility for international women’s cricket, whilst gender eligibility at domestic level is a matter for each individual Member Board, which may be impacted by local legislation. The regulations will be reviewed within two years.
ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said: “The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process and is founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review. Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players.”
The CEC endorsed a plan to accelerate the development of female match officials which includes equalising match day pay for ICC umpires across men’s and women’s cricket and ensuring there is one neutral umpire in every ICC Women’s Championship series from January 2024.
